Dear Prime Minister,[ … ] In our opinion, in order to
realize the principles of equality, dignity and freedom of religion and worship
on the one hand, while allowing those interested in segregated prayers at the
Wall on the other hand, a Third Section should be established at the Western
Wall, alongside the existing women’s section and men’s section.

The Third Section will be a
mixed section in which women will be permitted to pray while wearing a Tallit
and to read from the Torah. Mixed Bar Mitzvah ceremonies will be permitted in
this section, and girls will be allowed to hold Bat Mitzvah celebrations in
which they read from the Torah.

“The decisions are mine,”
Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz said. “If everyone does their own custom, the house
will explode.”

Rabinowitz is a political
appointee, named to his post in 2000 by then-Minister of Religious Affairs
Yossi Beilin. His authority stems from a 1981 law that gives the Kotel’s chief
rabbi power to “give instructions and ensure the enforcement of restrictions.”
The law also establishes that any prayer at the Kotel must be according to
“local custom.”

Who determines local
custom? Rabinowitz.

… Sitting high above the
Kotel, protected by law from his ideological adversaries, he sees Women of the
Wall as more of a nuisance than a threat.

“It’s a group of women that
yell and want to make an event,” he said. “There’s order. You can’t just do
what you want.”

“In the specific case” —
Anat Hoffman’s — “there is consensus on one thing: The police overreached.
There was absolutely no reason whatsoever to arrest Hoffman and keep her in
prison.

“The practical thing that
has to be done now is to make the decisions of the Supreme Court more effective
in preventing the increased control of the ultra-Orthodox over the Western
Wall. That’s exactly what we’re discussing now.”

In light of the ongoing
struggles of Women of the Wall and others to create a more egalitarian
environment at the Kotel, politics wasn’t far from my mind as I was speaking to
Joy. But I soon realized that for her, the issue is much more complex.

“It’s pretty clear that the
way the Wall is handled is not just. It offends me as a human being. But it’s
also true that my identity is affirmed when I enter a space that’s identified
as a female space. I always feel that my sense of myself is on sufferance: at
any minute, others might say, ‘you’re not real.’”

Of all of the things going
on in and around Israel right now, I wanted to briefly highlight the work of
Women of the Wall, not because I always agree with them and their politics, but
because their cause represents issues that should be important to all Jews, all
Zionists, and all women and men.

“In the United States, you
can have Reform Jews in San Francisco and Chabad in Brooklyn, and they can go
to the same demonstration and not interfere with each other.” It doesn’t matter
how each group defines Jewishness, he said. That’s not true in Israel.

In Israel, you have the Law
of Return. The definition is up to bureaucrats. The moment it is the decision
of a bureaucrat it is the decision of the government, and that is why there is
the tendency to become political.

“My theory is that every 12
years or so” — when there is a major fight over defining who is a Jew — “the
Jewish people have to recharge their batteries, and then they start over again.

In the
past year, Shas' El Hama'ayan educational network received NIS 12 million from
the Education Ministry for "Torah and Jewish culture lessons not held
within a formal learning framework."

This was
in addition to the regular budget the organization gets from the ministry. El
Hama'ayan was the big winner in this regard, but others also fared well. About
NIS 35.3 million has been distributed for this purpose in 2012, most of it to
Orthodox or ultra-Orthodox organizations - some of which are engaged in trying
to convert secular people to religion.

By
comparison, the Masorti (Conservative) Movement was granted less than NIS
100,000 for its activities in the sphere of Jewish education.

Five Jerusalem restaurants
are taking the city’s chief rabbinate to court after being fined between NIS
1,000 and NIS 2,000 for calling themselves kosher without formal certification
from the rabbinate.

This is harassment and
revenge of the rabbinate against us without any reason or legal basis,” said
Shai Gini, a co-owner of the Italian dairy restaurant Topolino in Mahane
Yehuda, which was fined NIS 2,000, but does not call itself kosher in any of
its materials or in the restaurant itself.

The examination of insects in vegetables, adhering to the laws of
milk and meat – are any of these beyond the comprehension of women? Of course
not.

Is there is an halachic prohibition on a woman working in a dining room or
a kitchen? Is it so outlandish an idea that a woman would walk into the kitchen
of a restaurant, a hospital, a banquet hall or a nursing home, open
refrigerator doors and track the processing of raw materials and mixtures?
These are rhetorical questions the answers to which are clear,” says Minka.

Senior haredi figures
called for the expansion of the rabbinical courts’ authority in Israel, at an
annual rabbinical conference on Tuesday organized by the World Center of Torah
Law.

Kiryat Ono Rabbi Ratzon
Arusi, the principal architect of the conference and a member of the Council of
the Chief Rabbinate, said that the gathering was an important tool for
advancing “the assimilation of [civil aspects of] Torah law into our lives.”

“We must remember that
there is no need to search for legal answers from the laws and justice
[systems] around the world when we have God’s Torah and the laws of the Torah,”
Arusi said.

“The state must allow
rabbinical judges in rabbinical courts to hear cases of monetary and property
law ... which would allow the huge community which wants the rabbinical courts
to have this authority to be judged according to Torah law.”

Current
state practice “contradicts the state’s commitment, under international law, to
eliminating all forms of discrimination against women,” said attorney Susan
Weiss, director of CWJ. “It also contradicts the 1951 Equal Rights Law, which
mandates adequate representation of women in public bodies.”

In order
to balance the inherent inequality regarding appointing rabbinic judges, Weiss
continued, it is not enough to settle for one female representative.

“Symbolic
representation is not enough,” she insists. “This situation is a disgrace to
justice in Israel and demands immediate change.”

Rather than placing blame
on women's groups -- which have worked tirelessly for decades in the spirit of
Torah to alleviate human suffering and enable women to choose whom they want to
be married to -- Rabbi Dahan would be better served by examining his court’s
record and its complicity in the anguish of, many women who have walked with
fear through its doors.

Rabbi Ben
Dahan said he is aware that he will have to deal with disinformation spread by
"feminist" groups. As Director of the Rabbinical Courts, he ordered a
survey that found that the total number of men who refused to grant their wives
a "get", or divorce decree, was 180, while the number of women who
refused to accept the get from their husbands was 190.

Respondents
were asked about their stand on religious legislation: The Chametz Law, the
restriction on opening stores on Shabbat, the law banning the rearing of pigs,
and others.

Fifty-five
percent of respondents believe these laws should not be repealed, 40% think
they should be repealed, and the remaining 5% offered no opinion on the matter.

As for the
issue of public transportation on Shabbat, 70% of respondents said they fully
supported operating buses on the day of rest in all parts of the country (25%)
or at least partially, in areas with a secular majority (45%).

The survey
further shows that 61% of the public believe the next Knesset should enact a
law recognizing civil marriage in Israel (87% of seculars and 57% of
traditional Jews), while 31% oppose such a law (77% of haredim and 72% of
religious Jews) and 8% offered no opinion on the matter.

Sixty-three
percent of respondents believe all Israeli citizens should share the burden
(22% think all citizens must join the army, while 41% view civil service as a
reasonable alternative)...

I believe that the three
approaches to mitigation proposed above will permit coexistence in the State of
Israel, and may even be a blessing for the unique, almost untenable, path taken
by the “Jewish, democratic state,” which is ultimately an expression of the
cultural uniqueness of the State of Israel.

I believe that if we give
up our pretensions of being able to solve the problem in absolute terms, and
accept the anomaly of “Jewish and democratic” as a special Israeli challenge,
different from those faced by other countries, this tension may have an ongoing
positive influence on both opposing sides, and we will all ultimately benefit.

The Hebrew
University launched a special pre-academic preparatory program this week aimed
at members of the haredi community wishing to enroll in institutions of higher
education.

A project
of the university’s Magid Institute for Continuing Education, the initiative
was created in response to the national challenge issued by the Council for
Higher Education in Israel to increase ultra-Orthodox society’s access to
higher education.

In the report’s analysis,
however, Haredi employment figures are identical to those of Israelis who
received no schooling after the 4th grade, hovering below 50% employment.

With a 57% growth in Haredi
elementary school enrollment between 2000 and 2010, the failure of Haredi
education to produce productive workers for the Israeli economy should worry
anyone who cares about Israel’s future, Ben-David says.

The Haredi schools system
educated 20% of all preschool children in 2000. By 2010, this shares rose
substantially to 24%. Within the Jewish community alone, the share of
Haredi preschoolers rose from 25% in 2000 to over 31% by 2010.

"Shas
creates poverty and need," "The Haredi shady dealers arouse hatred
toward Torah students," "Shas gives the Haredim a bad name,"
"Shas encourages racism and discrimination" - all of these are
allegations that Amsellem, in various formulations, has long been making in the
secular media and from diverse platforms. But now he seeks to publicize these
same messages in the ultra-Orthodox media, in an attempt to snatch voters from
Shas and United Torah Judaism.

Dov Lipman
announced on Saturday night that he would be in the top 20 of Yesh Atid’s list
for the Knesset.

Lipman had
been rumored for months to fill the party’s “haredi” seat, as well as being a connection
to the English-speaking community in Israel.

Lipman is
already known as an activist in Beit Shemesh, being one of the leaders in a
recent battle which drew national attention with the city’s ultra-Orthodox over
the location of a religious-zionist girls’ school.

Israel Hayom has learned that 30
percent of haredim who received their draft notices since August, when the Tal
Law that had previously provided them with exemptions expired, have presented
themselves at IDF recruitment centers to receive draft dates for next summer.

Following the expiration of the law,
many haredim vowed they would not answer their draft notices, regardless of
their legal obligation to be drafted.

Rav
Chaim Kanievsky, said that Bnei Brak is safe from missiles. The Torah study of
that town apparently protects it, and it alone. Likewise, when the 300-strong
Grodno yeshivah relocated from Ashdod to Bet Shemesh last week due to the war
in the South … Well, if that's the case, why didn't they stay in Ashdod?

It is
likely that if this procedure is followed as instructed by the rabbonim, many
talmidim will be listed as failing to respond to the IDF draft order and arrest
warrants will be issued against them and military police will likely begin
visiting yeshivos to arrest those whose names appear on the warrants.

The old role of the elite
soldier played by secular Israelis has changed. What you see in the IDF is that
religious observant youth are working their way up the ladder of promotion.
And, a large part of the voice of Zionist ideology today emanates from
religious institutions. Secular Zionism is going through a period of
soul-searching and is having a difficult time preserving [its] ideology. Having
religious observance behind it gives Zionist ideology strength and direction.”

Just as
his followers are older now and have other things on their minds beyond
politics, Deri is no longer the precocious yeshiva student who became interior
minister before the age of 30. Having spent two years in prison and another 10
as a private businessman, the 59-year-old [sic] grandfather still has an
apparent appetite for power. But his instincts for what makes the electorate
tick seem to have dulled somewhat.

Rabbi
Aviner has every right to his opinion, but his opinion must not be construed as
the singular traditional view, and it certainly should not be the voice of the
government in Israel; a country that belongs to all of her citizens, men and
women. We have the chance to create a truly democratic Israel, but with voices
like Rabbi Aviner's rising loudly from institutions of rabbinic authority,
equality is at risk.

Our
responsibility must be to voice a different Jewish perspective, one where women
and men who want to commit their lives to service of country are celebrated,
praised and given full and equal access. That is what the tradition demands of
us.

The point is that feminism,
despite the fact that it is seen by the public as "radical" actually
always makes this balanced point, but in a culture, both religious and general,
in which the voice of a woman in any case isn't really important, who cares
what feminism says.

“There’s a
real awakening that’s taking place,” said Michael Freund, who directs Shavei
Israel, a Jerusalem-based group that helps new Jewish communities such as
Bello’s. “The Jewish spark was never quenched, and these Anusim are really
fulfilling the dreams of their ancestors in that they are taking back the
Jewish identity that was so brutally stolen from their forefathers.”

Are American Jews and
Israelis drifting apart? Contemporary reports on American Jewish public opinion
have claimed that American Jews have increasingly distanced themselves from the
Jewish state. Is that the case, and if so, what are the reasons for it?

"The
religious world's access to the Internet, and women's access in particular, has
soared by hundreds of percentage points, so the era in which women look for
inspiration in conservative shop windows is over. Today they look for
inspiration from abroad online."

The
Jerusalem Municipality awarded initial approval to a plan to rebuild the
Tiferet Israel synagogue in the Old City’s Jewish Quarter, a magnificent domed
synagogue from the 19th century which was destroyed in the 1948 War of
Independence.

Yoni, a local resident recently returned from reserve duty,
gave a ride to a “Yerushalmi” Jew from the hassidic enclave of Ramat Beit
Shemesh Bet and was shocked to hear that his passenger did not even not know
that his country was at war.

“Vos?” he asked Yoni in Yiddish.

“We are at war?” There are those among the Israeli-born
haredim who do not listen to the radio, read newspapers or own a television.

Young
Americans who served in the IDF but live in the States are arriving in Israel
to join their combat units.

Twenty-four-year
old Shmulik Lazaroff, one of 11 children in his family, grew up in Houston,
Texas, where his parents serve as Chabad emissaries. Five years ago, he
immigrated to Israel and began rabbinical school studies. Soon, he was drafted
into an infantry unit, and got to know Aud and others at the Michael Levine
Center.

“The Lubavitch
rebbe said that 'whoever serves in the IDF gets his place reserved in the world
to come.'” And he definitely wants to serve. “God willing. I will return to my
unit,” he says.

Shalom Lakein, 21,
from Brooklyn, was having the same thoughts. Lakein is also a Chabadnik, and
one of six brothers, three of whom have served in the Israeli army. Lakein, who
served in Golani, was released from the army four months ago. Now he wants back
in.

Amid all the
Facebook posts about the heart-rending violence taking place at this moment in
Israel and Gaza,this
photoof a bomb shelter door in Ashdod leapt
out. It says that the bomb shelter is only for men and boys.

New
immigrants from Ethiopia get a severe reality check mere days after their
arrival in Israel as bombs fall around their absorption center. Despite the
shock, they're adapting quickly and looking to pitch in.

Chief Rabbi Amar: “Just like the People of Israel did not
travel while the pillar of cloud was in the encampment and rested above the
Tabernacle, so too today the People of Israel feel safe because of your
presence here, and will not wander or escape while you are guard the people
dwelling in Zion.”

The
writer is director of the Rabbinical Court of the Israel Council of Progressive
Rabbis

My
own experience on the municipal front in Israel is that there is nothing like
concerted pressure from our friends in North American when it comes to forcing
city officials to respect the rights and needs of all religious streams.

In an entirely different context, the European Central Bank has
forced the Greek government to take unpalatable steps to bring about economic
reforms as the price for a bailout. Is it too much to hope that North American
Jewry will employ similar tactics when it comes to coercing Israel to live up
to the ideals upon which it was founded?

The writer is the rabbi of Har Adar and a senior
research fellow at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute

In an era characterized by an endless
variety of modern and haredi Orthodox communities, do the wars against Reform
Jews meananything? Is it
possible that inciting statements are made in order to serve the battle between
Orthodox groups for internal needs of de-legitimization?

In this era of empowerment, is it not time for Orthodoxy to
forsake the expressions of weakness which it was characterized by up to 40 or
50 years ago, and stop responding out of unjustified fear?

The Orthodox activists' struggle against Reform Jews' right to be
recognized by the State is wrong or hypocritical, or both. It also contradicts
Israel's essence as the Jewish nation state and a democratic state, which must
make room for all factions, communities and streams.

"I've
learned that there are 50 shades of black," Anat Hoffman said, speaking of
her attempts to assert her religious rights with Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox
religious establishment. "Most ultra-Orthodox can tolerate a group of
women praying once a month at the Kotel. If you can't, don't come between 7 and
8 in the morning 11 times a year."

Like
Hoffman, Rabbi Uri Ayalon, CEO of the pro-pluralism Hatnua Yerushalmit, said
the growing ultra-Orthodox population in Jerusalem is not forcing a liberal
retreat from the city. His organization bought space for 140 outdoor ads
depicting female activists, to prove there would not be a backlash from
ultra-Orthodox Jews for displaying pictures of women.

"Only
four were damaged," he said. "What's happening in Jerusalem is not
being done by the ultra-Orthodox, but by what we think they will say and do."

Hoffman,
who also leads the Reform Movement's Israel Religious Action Center, said she
wished Israel reflected the diversity of her GA audience.

"This
is how Israel should be - a supermarket. All forms of Judaism legal. All state
funded, or all not state funded. May the best rabbi win."

[Reform President Rabbi Richard] Jacobs is
presumably referring to the fact that only Orthodox marriages, divorces,
burials and conversions are officially recognized by the central government,
and outside a small handful of municipalities and local councils, only the
Orthodox streams receive public funding.

This is discrimination, but not
against non-Orthodox Jews. Rather, it's in favor of a bloated and corrupt
Orthodox establishment. Some may see this as semantic hairsplitting, but I
think there's a fundamental difference.

I don’t believe
that there can be a serious and responsible grappling with the challenge of
Jewish Peoplehood without confronting the reality that Israel stops this
plurality at its borders, let alone celebrating it.

From the fact
that no non-Orthodox rabbi can officiate at a legal wedding in Israel to the
arrest of Anat Hoffman for wearing a talit and reciting the Sh’ma at the Kotel
– how can we speak of affirming Jewish Peoplehood without strongly confronting Israel's partial function as an antidote to this goal.

Instead of
focusing on the centrality of Israel and the impulse of cheering everything
that Israel does, Jewish Peoplehood celebrates the plurality and dynamism of
Jewish life around the world with Israel as a major hub of Jewish cultural
creativity, a hub that is in constant interaction with Jews around the world.

Instead of a
model that displays actors on the stage vs. spectators, Jewish Peoplehood talks
about partnership, engagement and dialogue as organizing principles of
contemporary Jewish life.

The state does not
accept the Egged bus cooperative's decision to bar all advertisements
with pictures of people from its buses in Jerusalem, the government told the
High Court of Justice last week.

"The companies thought that by not publishing ads with men,
either, they solved the problem,"[Yerushalmim attorney] said. "The
state is telling them they haven't solved the problem. But now I want to
understand what the state is doing about it. Does it intend to revoke the
license, or impose sanctions to enforce its decision?"

"People
realize that my kitchen is Glatt kosher, only I don't have a certificate from
the rabbinate. Yet the fears that I would be harmed by the lack of a
certificate proved unfounded. I have kippa-wearing diners who tell me they come
because I display a kashrut certificate from conscience, and not that of the
rabbinate."

Rabbi David Stav, chair
of Tzohar: "Without a chief rabbinate, the rabbi believes the
Jewish People would “have been split into two to three nations,” because of the
issue of Jewish identity. “Nobody would have recognized the [other group’s]
Jewish identity.”

The upcoming end of current Chief
Rabbi Yona Metzger’s term provides “a real window of opportunity that is open
now, and will be closed for 10 years if we don’t take it today, and if it will
be closed for 10 years, I guess it will be closed forever.”

The prenuptial “Agreement for Mutual Respect” [which]
obligates, under Halacha and general Israeli law, a recalcitrant spouse to pay
additional support payments once the other spouse has initiated the divorce
process and efforts toward marital reconciliation (if so desired) have failed.

What needs to be prevented is yet another
“creative formula” that will leave the inequity undented. Gradually increasing
the numbers of conscripted ultra-orthodox youths is likely the best available
option, which could also be imposed at random. A net could be cast
unpredictably and whoever is caught in it must serve or face personal
consequences.

The deterrent value of possible punishment cannot be
underestimatedand might facilitate the conscription of greater
numbers of eligible haredim.

A consumer
boycott of the group's Shefa Shuk outlets by their target market, the
ultra-Orthodox community, since the start of 2008 led to more trouble for the
company.

Through no
fault of Vurembrand, the boycott was called against David Wiessman in reaction
to Dor Alon's acquisition of the 24/7 chain AM:PM which, as the name indicates,
operates on Shabbat.

The target
chosen from among Wiessman's operations was Shefa Shuk, where sales and profits
began plummeting. Only 10 of its original 40 outlets remained viable when, in
September 2011, they were renamed Zol B'Shefa. They currently include 17
stores.

And finally, the GPT suffers from JFNA’s own lack of clarity
about its purpose.

Is JFNA a trade
association that offers services to constituent federations? A Jewish
“government” or representative that lobbies in Washington and Jerusalem? A
professional advisory (or even decision making) body where federation dollars
are divvied up and shipped to projects and organizations?

This
program is designed for Israeli educators seeking to implement pluralistic
Jewish education in Israeli educational institutions and is organized in
conjunction with a M.A. degree in Jewish Education from the Melton Centre for
Jewish Education at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.